Just getting started, it would take years to complete the list of all the things that don’t exist:

Mickey Mouse
Bambi
Camelot
Spiderman
Forrest Gump
…and on and on…
and God?

I wonder.  We love Mickey Mouse, Bambi, Forrest Gump.  Even when they don’t really exist.

But why, if He doesn’t exist, do we have such a hard time loving God?

If we encounter people talking about Mickey Mouse, we’re likely to pull up a chair, sit down and join the conversation.  Oh, yeah!  I got to shake his hand at Disney Land when I was a kid.  And did you see his first movie Steamboat Willie?  I think, actually, though, my favorite Mick flick was Fantasia.  Fantastic it was!  And we’ll invite other people to pull up their chairs so’s we can hum a few bars of symphony and move our hands like the advancing army of mops and brooms chasing Mickey down the stairs.

But if you want to sit in a restaurant and talk about God, you’d better lower your voice.

Most people want to sit at tables far away from people, their Bibles open, who are engaged in God Talk.  And it’s just actually ridiculous when these fanatics bow their heads and pray at the beginning of their meal.  In a public restaurant, even.  I mean, what’s with them?  They think they’re so good.  Better than everyone.  Can’t they keep that stuff to themselves?

We love people who love Mickey.

On the other hand, we’re suspicious of, if not downright hostile toward, people who love God…and God’s son Jesus.

If God doesn’t exist, and if he’s not real…if he’s just a figment of the vivid imaginations of  over-wrought people…why does it matter to the rest of us so much that He’s out there…in the world…where we might bump into Him now and then?  If God doesn’t exist.

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